TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Cambodian Rat Meat: A growing Export Market

I find this rather interesting. If it did not pass a taste test, no market would ever develop. Yet it also proves something else. That this rodent and its many varieties can be generally collected easily enough and passed directly into the human food chain easily. This is promising as there are many situations in which the rasts could become actually welcomed. They can become our waste removal specialists in a well organized farming enterprise. Of course that means pest roofing infrastructure but that is already done anyway.

The real problem is their ability to make life difficult for birds. Thusc it is not that easy. Yet aggressive human collection may actually be the best thing possible as it can keep populations well below a viable threshold.The key is that consumption is not unthinkable at all.

It will never be a huge source of human protein but it can fit into well enough.

.

.

Cambodian rat meat: A growing export market

By Kevin DoylePhnom Penh

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28863315

Rice field rats are considered a delicacy in Cambodia

A unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents.

Popularly considered a disease-carrying nuisance in many societies, the rice field rats, Rattus argentiventer, of this small South-East Asian nation are considered a healthy delicacy due to their free-range lifestyle and largely organic diet.

Rat-catching season reaches its height after the rice harvest in June and July when rats have little to eat in this part of rural Kompong Cham province, some 60km from the capital Phnom Penh.

That lack of food coincides with seasonal rains that force the rodents onto higher ground, and into the 120 rat traps local farmer Chhoeun Chhim, 37, said he set each evening.

"Wild rats are very different. They eat different food," said Mr Chhim, explaining with a gourmand's intensity the difference between rice-field rats and their urban cousins, which he considers vermin unfit for the cooking pot.

Common rats "are dirty and they have a lot of scabies on their skin," Mr Chhim said. "That's why we don't catch them."

Somewhat proudly he listed off the superior eating habits of the rats he had caught the night before: rice stalks, the vegetable crops of unlucky local farmers, and the roots of wild plants.

'Tastes like pork'

On a good night, he can catch up to 25kg of rats.

"After the harvest season the rats don't have much food to eat, so it is a good time to catch them," he said, unloading his motorcycle of several large, steel cages filled with rats at the home of the local rat trader.

Though rat meat tastes "a bit like pork," Mr Chhim said it was not really his preferred meal.

"We sell the rats for money and buy fish instead," said Chin Chon, 36, another rat catcher as he dropped off several more packed cages to be weighed, graded and repacked for export.

Cambodian rat catcher Chhoeun Chhim sells his harvests to a local dealer

Some of the rat harvests are sold to traders from Vietnam

All of their catch, which amounted to 200kg of noisy, squealing rats on a recent morning, is exported exclusively to Vietnam.

Rat meat can be grilled, fried, boiled in a soup or minced up in a pate, said Chheng An, 22, as he prepared his motorcycle for the four-hour journey over bumpy, dusty roads to deliver the day's batch to a rat trading post at the Vietnamese border.

"It's a good meat. It can be cooked many ways. Rats are very expensive in Vietnam and very cheap here," he said. He wobbled away on his motorcycle as it struggled under the weight of his teeming cargo.

Booming business

At the height of the rat-catching season, rat trader Saing Sambou, 46, exports up to two tonnes of rats each morning to Vietnam.

In the last 15 years, her business has grown almost tenfold. Rat meat initially sold for less than 20 cents per kg, now she earns $2.50 per kg, and demand for rat meat increases each year.

Like most Cambodians, Mrs Sambou does not commonly eat rat, though she has become a great believer in the meat, which she say is 100% safe for human consumption.

Gesturing to some scrawny specimens of farmyard poultry pecking in the dirt at her feet, Mrs Sambou explained: "I think rats are cleaner than chickens or ducks.

"Rats eat only roots and rice."

Sporting a recent rat bite on his finger, her nine-year-old son, Roeun Chan Mean, likes to steal a snack from his mother's stock every once in awhile.

"Rat liver and thigh are the most delicious," Chan Mean said, while his two pet dogs made their own quick breakfast of a pair of rats who had attempted to escape during the morning export packing process.

Hean Vanhorn, a department chief at the Ministry of Agriculture in Phnom Penh, said the rat meat trade was also helping to protect the country's rice crop.

\

"Hunting rats for food and sale contributes to preventing damage to rice," he said.

About Me

Apr 2017 - 4.1 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift&. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.